In 2013, for the fifth straight year, the World Economic Forum proclaimed Switzerland the world’s most economically competitive country. The WEF praised Switzerland’s “excellent institutions, the dynamism of its markets, and its capacity for innovation.” The Swiss economy remained healthy, with GDP projected to grow by 1.8% in 2013. On March 3 citizens voted in favour of introducing some of the world’s most stringent restrictions on executive compensation. Dubbed the “fat-cat initiative,” the move was fueled by public anger at the fact that despite financial difficulties at several Swiss companies, including banking giant UBS AG, managers’ salaries and bonuses remained high. New measures were promised to control executive pay at companies listed on the Swiss stock exchange by increasing shareholders’ say in corporate governance. Excessive severance packages would be banned, and managers who disobeyed the rules could face criminal charges.

The United States and other countries continued their campaign to force Swiss banks to reveal the identities of foreign clients who, by holding their money in “offshore” accounts, evaded paying tax in their home countries. In January Switzerland’s oldest private bank, Wegelin, founded in 1741, closed after pleading guilty in a New York court to helping U.S. clients dodge taxes. Wegelin admitted to having allowed more than 100 U.S. citizens to hide $1.2 billion from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for nearly a decade. Wegelin was the first foreign bank to plead guilty to tax-evasion charges in the U.S. This was, however, only one battle in the larger war being waged by the U.S. and other governments against banking secrecy and tax fraud. Two other major Swiss banks, Credit Suisse and Julius Bär, remained under investigation by the U.S. authorities, as did a number of smaller regional banks. Pressure from the EU mounted on Switzerland in May when Luxembourg and Austria both gave ground on bank-secrecy regulations. In response, the Swiss government announced that it would for the first time allow Swiss banks to disclose information on foreign clients. The parliament at first resisted, but in August the Swiss and U.S. governments announced that they had reached a deal under which Swiss banks would cooperate with the U.S. Justice Department. This was seen as a major turning point, because it had been a crime under Swiss law for a bank to transfer data to a foreign government. It was generally expected that Switzerland’s reputation for reliability and stability would enable it to retain its role as one of the world’s leading financial centres. In July Switzerland signed a free-trade agreement with China; this was China’s first such agreement with a country in mainland Europe.

At the beginning of June, Switzerland reintroduced quotas for work permits for EU citizens. The aim was to ward off a spike in immigration from the poorest EU member states, specifically Bulgaria and Romania. Because Switzerland had made a series of deals with the EU on the free movement of people in return for access to European markets, it could not discriminate against specific countries and was obliged to include all EU members. The move drew sharp criticism from the European Commission, which warned that the quotas could harm mutual relations. The government was also believed to be acting in response to a growing popular backlash, at least in some parts of Switzerland, against what were seen as unacceptably high numbers of migrant workers and asylum seekers. In this respect Switzerland underwent a period of soul-searching when, in August, American talk show host Oprah Winfrey claimed that she had been a victim of racism in an upmarket Zürich fashion boutique.

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